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<title>Call for Papers: LION15: The 15th Learning and Intelligent Optimization Conference, June 20-25, 2021</title>
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<p align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial"><strong> <font size="4">LION 2021 - CALL FOR PAPERS</font></strong></p>
<p align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial"><strong>******************************************************************************************<br>
The 15th Learning and Intelligent Optimization (LION) conference </strong></font></p>
<p align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial"><strong>June 20-25, 2021 online</strong><br>
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<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">The 15th Learning and Intelligent Optimization (LION) conference is planned to take place as a virtual conference on June 20-25, 2021 online.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">---------------------------------------------------------------<br>
Conference website <a href="https://lion15.sba-research.org/index.html">https://lion15.sba-research.org/index.html</a><br>
Submission link <a href="https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lion15">https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lion15</a><br>
<strong>Extended Submission deadline April 15, 2021, Anywhere on Earth (AoE = UTC-12h)</strong><br>
Author notification May 15, 2021</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">The large variety of heuristic algorithms for hard optimization problems raises numerous interesting and challenging issues. Practitioners using heuristic algorithms for hard optimization problems are confronted with
the burden of selecting the most appropriate method, in many cases through expensive algorithm configuration and parameter tuning. Scientists seek theoretical insights and demand a sound experimental methodology for evaluating algorithms and assessing strengths
and weaknesses. This effort requires a clear separation between the algorithm and the experimenter, who, in too many cases, is "in the loop" as a motivated intelligent learning component. LION deals with designing and engineering ways of "learning" about the
performance of different techniques, and ways of using past experience about the algorithm behavior to improve performance in the future. Intelligent learning schemes for mining the knowledge obtained online or offline can improve the algorithm design!<br>
process<br>
and simplify the applications of high-performance optimization methods. Combinations of different algorithms can further improve the robustness and performance of the individual components.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">This meeting explores the intersections and uncharted territories between machine learning, artificial intelligence, energy, mathematical programming and algorithms for hard optimization problems. The main purpose
of the event is to bring together experts from these areas to discuss new ideas and methods, challenges and opportunities in various application areas, general trends and specific developments. We are excited to be bringing the LION conference in Greece for
the third time.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>Plenary/Invited Speakers</strong><br>
------------------------</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">Martin Charles Golumbic (University of Haifa, Israel) "B_k-VPG graphs – the string graphs of paths on a grid"</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">Evangelos Kranakis (Carleton University, Canada) "Communication and Mobility in Optimization for Infrastructure Resilience"</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">Paul Spirakis (University of Liverpool, UK and University of Patras, Greece) "Temporal Networks and the impact of availability patterns"</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>Turorial Speakers</strong><br>
-----------------</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">Rick Kuhn (NIST, USA)<br>
Combinatorial Difference Methods in AI</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">Franz Wotawa (Graz University of Technology, Austria)<br>
Title: On the use of ontologies for automated test suite generation</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>COVID-19 INFORMATION</strong><br>
---------------------</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">The 15th Learning and Intelligent Optimization (LION) conference is planned to take place as a hybrid (on-site and on-line) conference on June 20-25, 2021 at Athens, Greece.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>Submission Guidelines<br>
</strong>----------------------</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. The following paper categories are welcome:</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> Paper Format</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> Please prepare your paper in English using the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) template, which is available here.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> Papers must be submitted in PDF.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> Types of Submissions</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> When submitting a paper to LION15, authors are required to select one of the following three types of papers:</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> Long paper: original novel and unpublished work (max. 15 pages in LNCS format);<br>
Short paper: an extended abstract of novel work (max. 6 pages in LNCS format);<br>
Work for oral presentation only (no page restriction; any format). For example, work already published elsewhere, which is relevant and which may solicit fruitful discussion at the conference.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> Submission System</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> All papers must be submitted using EasyChair at
<a href="https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lion15">https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lion15</a>.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>List of Topics</strong><br>
--------------</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">LION15 welcomes high quality submissions on the broad topics of machine learning, artificial intelligence, energy, mathematical programming, optimization (models, algorithms and applications) and heuristics. Additionally,
more specialized, submission topics for long and short papers may include, but are not limited to:</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> automatic solver configuration<br>
parallel methods for search and optimization<br>
hard combinatorial optimization problems<br>
intelligent optimization in health, e-health, bioinformatics and neurosciences<br>
machine learning and optimization methods in tourism and hospitality<br>
nature-inspired algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems<br>
hard combinatorial optimization problems in combinatorics, computational geometry and machine learning<br>
DC (difference of convex functions) learning: theory, algorithms and applications<br>
computational intelligence for smart cities<br>
computational intelligence for autonomous driving<br>
optimization and management in smart manufacturing<br>
algorithms and applied optimization for environmental data science<br>
machine learning and robust optimization techniques in finance applications<br>
machine learning and optimization methods in software engineering</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>Organizing committee<br>
</strong>--------------------</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"> Panos Pardalos (General Chair), Center for Applied Optimization, University of Florida, USA<br>
Dimitris E. Simos (Technical Program Committee Chair), SBA Research, Austria & Institute for Software Technology, Graz University of Tecnology, Austria & Information Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA<br>
Ilias Kotsireas (Local Organizing Committee Chair), CARGO Lab, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>Publication<br>
</strong>-----------</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">LION15 proceedings will be published by SpringerNature in the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">Revised selected papers of LION15 will be published in a special issue of Annals of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence.</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>Contact</strong><br>
-------</font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="2" face="Arial">All questions about submissions should be emailed to the Technical PC Chair, Dimitris E. Simos at
<a href="mailto:dsimos@sba-research.org">dsimos@sba-research.org</a><br>
</font></p>
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